Guess Your Own ROI Before Checking Your Records

[SharpEddie47]

This thread has one rule, and the rule is the point. Before you open any spreadsheet, app history or betting statement, write your estimated ROI for the last twelve months in this thread. Then go and check. Then post the real number next to it.
I am asking because of something I noticed last month. I quote my verified +4.1% over fifteen years in this forum constantly. I realised I could not tell you my figure for the last twelve months. I know the long number by heart. A statistic you know by heart is a statistic that may have stopped updating itself.
My guess for the trailing twelve months: +4.0%. I have not looked.
Be specific. Do not write "roughly even." A vague guess cannot be wrong, which makes it useless.
Trust the process, not your gut.

 

[FadeThePublic]

Okay, a number. +12%. (Yes, twelve. I know what I'm about to find out.)
Here's why: my criteria plays have been running hot all season. Reverse line movement, public heavy, fade. The sheet says 48-31 and I've been walking around like I invented gravity. RIP public money, I'm sorry, I'm not sorry.
I haven't opened the full tab yet. I know where the bodies are buried and I'm choosing not to dig.

 

[oli_sussex]

Guess: 5%. Not yet checked.

 

[ParlayPrincess_88]

Okay so I don't track anything lol so this is a pure vibe guess. I think I'm like up 2%?? Maybe? I remember a lot of bangers
I never look at the history tab on the apps because it makes my stomach hurt. Going to look now though. Brb

 

[TaffyTipster]

Right.
Rugby: plus eight.
Football: about level, maybe a touch up.
Don't track it properly butt.
Betfair has a profit and loss page.
Never opened it.
Always been a bit scared of what's on it.

 

[CoachTony_Bets]

My guess is +6%. I bet around $500 a game and the last few seasons have felt clean. As a coach, I know I remember the plays that went right. I tend to file my wins as well-reasoned and my losses as freak turnovers.
One thing I'm doing differently: I'm asking my wife what she thinks I've made, and I'm making her write it down before I open anything. She's never seen the sheet. She only sees what comes into the house. I'd like to know whose number is closer.

 

[Klaus]

Guess: 4.9%.
This is not a genuine guess. I have documented the figure for fourteen years and I know it to the decimal.
I include it so that the thread has no gaps, and because I would like to observe what happens when a person guesses a number he already knows.

 

[ThePuntingProf]

One must consider that I have an advantage and a disadvantage in this exercise, the advantage being that I have done a version of it every January for a good many years, the disadvantage being that I did it with someone else, Margaret and I would each write on a slip of paper our estimate of the previous year's return on the punting, fold it, and put both slips in an envelope which lived on the study mantelpiece until the ledger had been closed, and then we would open the envelope after the arithmetic was done, hers was always the lower figure and always the nearer, she said that I counted the punts I remembered and she counted the ones I had stopped mentioning, I have written only one slip this time, and the envelope looks rather large for the purpose, my estimate for the last twelve months is seven point two per cent, which is the figure I always quote and which I believe to be correct, the ledger is closed and I have not opened it, and I shall do so presently, with the Earl Grey, which has already gone cold.

 

[DublinDegen]

lads im going to say about fifteen hundred down this year... maybe less... theres been good weeks...
i havent opened the tracker app in months so this is all feel... the feel is that its not as bad as it was... the feel is always that its not as bad as it was...
going to look now... then ill say what it says...

 

[oli_sussex]

Actual: 5.3%. I guessed 5. In 2016 I guessed level and was down £2,400. That ended the casual betting.

 

[ParlayPrincess_88]

Okay so I did it. I downloaded the history from both apps. Total staked is about $9,300 and the net is minus $820. I had to use a calculator and that's... minus 8.8%?? I guessed PLUS 2. That's like eleven points lol
The weird part is I wasn't lying to myself on purpose. I just remembered the bangers. Nobody remembers the Tuesday $30 prop that lost. I've put in $1,200 total and there's $380 in there now. I knew that. I just never put the two numbers next to each other.

 

[Klaus]

Actual: 4.9%. Identical to the guess.
I notice that I am relieved. A person who is relieved to confirm a number he already knew was not testing anything. The relief is information about what I was afraid of finding, and I had arranged not to find it.
I will do the exercise properly. I will estimate a number I do not know, in a place where I do not usually look. Genau, I do not yet know where that place is.

 

[FadeThePublic]

Okay. Full tab. All 340 bets this season, not just the 79 that fit my criteria.
+2.1%.
Not twelve. Two point one.
The criteria bets are still +18.4% (79 bets, small sample, I know). The other 261 are me being bored on a Sunday and they're running at minus 2.8%. So the system works and I'm the leak. (Vegas knows. It always knew about me.)
I've been posting the 79 for a year. The other 261 weren't hidden. I just never put them in a sentence.

 

[SharpEddie47]

Fade, your 79 bets at +18.4% carry a standard error of roughly eleven points. At near even money a single bet has a standard deviation of about one unit, so the error on the mean over 79 bets is one divided by the square root of 79, or 11.3%. The system may be working. The sample cannot tell you so.
The 261 bets at minus 2.8% are the more reliable number, because there are more of them. You have been quoting the noisy one.
Trust the process, not your gut.

 

[FadeThePublic]

Thank you Eddie. (I knew.) (I did not know.)

 

[TaffyTipster]

Opened it.
Betfair P and L. Last twelve months.
Rugby: plus 3.4.
Football: minus 5.9.
Wales: minus 11.
Wales. Minus eleven. When I back them.
I said plus eight on rugby mun. Eight.
Rugby's tidy. It's the red shirt that's the problem.
Bronwyn knew. Never said a number. Just says "is it Wales again."

 

[FadeThePublic]

Taffy, you said +8 on the rugby. You were off by 4.6.

 

[TaffyTipster]

I was being generous mate.
It was rugby.

 

[oli_sussex]

Generosity is not an estimate.

 

[CoachTony_Bets]

Wife's number first, since I made her write it before I looked. She said "about four, five thousand dollars? You don't talk about it much." I told her to just pick a figure and she picked that one.
Mine was +6%. The real ROI is 3.4%. The profit has averaged $4,600 over the last three seasons.
I've been telling people on this forum $8,000 to $15,000 a year. Those were my best years. I think there's a middle ground on whether that's lying. I don't think it is, exactly. It's the season I'd like on the film. She only sees what comes into the house. What came in was four thousand six hundred.